Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The World Economic Forum warns that turbulent financial markets and geopolitical tensions may divert attention away from the climate issue during 2008. "Action to mitigate climate change, for example, may be put in danger should the global economy weaken substantially, even though many of the... decisions which will shape the future path of global climate will need to be made in the next five years," according to a new report prepared for the forthcoming Davos summit.

The report on global risks identifies four major issues for the coming year: systemic financial risk, supply chain disruptions, energy security and, now a global concern, food security. Prices for many staple foods reached record highs during 2007 and global food reserves are at a 25-year low, rendering world food supply vulnerable to political crisis or natural disaster. In the longer-term, the report warns of complex challenges to global equity as the drivers of global food insecurity - population growth, lifestyle changes, use of crops to manufacture biofuels and climate change - become more acute.

The World Bank and the European Union (EU) are planning to raise a new loan to assist Least Developed Countries fight climate change. "I don't agree to use existing development funds to finance the fight against climate change in the least developed countries," said EU development commissioner Louis Michel. Industrialized nations would borrow money on the international capital market and the loan would be reimbursed over a long period. Some funds may be raised through taxation.

Michel had discussed the plan for a global fund at the European Development Days meeting in November 2007. There, he stressed the need for "a creative way to design this global loan which would allow us the resources to deal with these climate issues." "If we don't drive this forward through strong political decisions to get immediate results," he continued, "we will find ourselves in the same place fifteen years from now."

Switchgrass, a second-generation source of ethanol, yields around five times as much energy as is required to grow it, according to a new report. "This [study] clearly demonstrates that switchgrass is not only energy efficient, but can be used in a renewable biofuel economy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance rural economies," said co-author Ken Vogel from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The analysis was based on field trials conducted over five years in Nebraska and North and South Dakota. The switchgrass that was grown should have produced as much ethanol per acre as corn grown in the same areas, though the researchers cautioned that ethanol production from switchgrass, based on conversion of lignocellulose, rested on various assumptions. "Corn grain conversion technology is mature, whereas cellulosic conversion efficiency technology is based on an estimated value" Vogel warned. Switchgrass is being developed for use on marginal crop lands and it is not expected that it will replace corn being grown on prime agricultural land.